Land clearing in Coryell County mostly means cedar. This is rolling cedar and limestone country on the Lampasas Cut Plain, where Ashe juniper grows in brakes thick enough to make walking hard and mesquite fills the valley pasture below. The Leon River runs through Gatesville, the county seat and the Spur Capital of Texas, and Cowhouse Creek winds across the south toward Belton Lake.
Fort Cavazos covers much of the southern county, with Copperas Cove on US-190 at its edge, and Mother Neff State Park, Texas’s first state park, protects Leon River bottomland near Oglesby. Around them the work splits three ways: cattle and goat ranchers near Gatesville, Flat and Purmela reclaiming grazing and opening fence rows, families near Copperas Cove and FM 116 clearing acreage for homes, and hunting places that need lanes and openings.
Communities we work in Coryell County
- Gatesville
- Copperas Cove
- Oglesby
- Flat
- Purmela
- The Grove
Thin hills, deep bottoms
Coryell County’s hills are limestone with thin soil and steep draws. The Leon River and Cowhouse Creek bottoms have deeper ground that floods after heavy rain and stays soft for a while afterward.
Cedar brakes on the slopes are dense, and regrowth comes quickly once they’re opened, so the plan usually covers how you’ll keep the ground open after we leave.
Where the work is
Most jobs are ranch and rural land: cedar brake mulching, mesquite grubbing, pasture restoration and fence lines around Gatesville, Flat and Purmela, plus homesites near Copperas Cove and wildlife lanes on hunting properties.
The Tigercat M726G is built for dense cedar on open slopes, the Timberpro TL725C reaches into steep draws, and the John Deere dozer with root rake grubs mesquite out of the valley pasture.
Warblers, oak wilt and city rules
Most of the county is unincorporated, with no county tree-removal permit. Oak-juniper woodland near Fort Cavazos is known golden-cheeked warbler country, though, so we check habitat first, and clearing in possible habitat is generally avoided during nesting season, roughly March through August.
Gatesville and Copperas Cove have city development rules, floodplain rules can apply along the Leon River, and Texas A&M Forest Service oak wilt guidance applies to every job with oaks.